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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27312904">Pumpkin Patch</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fullofleaves/pseuds/fullofleaves'>fullofleaves</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Marvel Cinematic Universe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Halloween, M/M, No viable plot whatsoever, dumb fluff, stupid banter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 20:47:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,880</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27312904</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fullofleaves/pseuds/fullofleaves</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony for some reason thought it would be a good idea to take Loki to a tourist trap pumpkin patch.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Loki/Tony Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>93</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Pumpkin Patch</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This fic is purely stupid Halloween-adjacent fluff BS that I wrote in haste and has no point.  Enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“What about this one?”</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>“This one?”</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>“The one on the end?”</p>
<p>“Tony.”  Loki looks up with an expression of admonishment on his face.  The kind of expression more commonly seen on the faces of elementary school librarians.  Did they have elementary school librarians on Asgard when Loki was a kid?  They must have, for him to be able to mimic that expression so precisely.  “I’m trying to concentrate.”</p>
<p>“You’re picking out a pumpkin,” Tony says.  “A pumpkin that we’re then going to take home and disembowel.  On a scale of critical life decisions, this ranks somewhere below choosing a brand of toothpaste.  Come on.”</p>
<p>But Loki just repeats, “Tony,” in that tone of mild disapproval.</p>
<p>“We’ve been here for <em>four hours</em>.”</p>
<p>“Perfection takes time.”</p>
<p>“Okay but.”  Taking a step back, as if that’ll help, Tony rubs his hands over his face.  As if that’ll also help.  “What are you even doing?  Looking into the stringy, slimy soul of each pumpkin to descry its fate and determine whether it’ll be worthy of our crappy attempts at carving?  Because I’m telling you now, my jack-o-lantern skills are limited to triangle eyes and lopsided zigzag mouth.”</p>
<p>“No,” says Loki.  “I’m carving it.  You’re not allowed to touch my pumpkin.”</p>
<p>“Do you have any idea how dirty that sounds?  And worse, do you have any idea how much it’s killing me that I’m too bored and frustrated to think up anything sassy to say in return?  That was a perfect lead-in.  I’m dying here.”</p>
<p>“Do you require another cider to recover your wits?” Loki asks.  He sounds like he’s smirking.  Smirking as he leans down close to inspect a tiny blemish on one of the pumpkins.  What a quintessentially Loki thing to do.</p>
<p>“No,” Tony growls.  Then: “Wait.  I changed my mind.  Yes.  I do.  It’s third cider o’clock.”  Anything to get Loki away from the pumpkins.</p>
<p>“Very well.  Let’s get you a cider.  Then we’ll come back to choose a pumpkin.”</p>
<p>Or Tony could stage an intervention, insist they leave immediately, and then buy the first one he saw at a supermarket on the way home while Loki sat in the car.  Both outcomes would be equally likely.</p>
<p>The snack booth is on the other side of the pumpkin patch, past the Great Wall of Haybales and the petting zoo, and next to the comically tiny train ride.  It’s not much, serving only a sparse selection of standard tourist trap carbs like popcorn, fries, and giant pretzels, but at least it’s something.  “You know what would vastly improve this place?” he asks Loki as they stand in line.</p>
<p>“More pumpkins?”</p>
<p>“No.  Oddly enough, that is not what I was going to say.  What I was going to say was, booze.  The whole concept of a pumpkin patch would be way more tolerable and – dare I say it – maybe even fun?  If we were totally loaded.”</p>
<p>“You’d get lost in the corn maze, Tony.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, but I’d be too drunk to care.  Do you want hot or cold cider?”</p>
<p>“Hot, obviously.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know why I even asked.  It’s only eighty-seven degrees out here and you’re wearing a wool coat and scarf.”</p>
<p>“It’s seasonal.”</p>
<p>“You look like a weird European.”</p>
<p>Nonetheless, Tony buys two ciders (a normal cold one for himself, and a ridiculous hot one for Loki), and they sip as they do a slow meander through the rest of the attractions.  The bean-bag toss.  The miniature farm town.  The animatronic chickens telling jokes.  The shooting gallery.  The pig races.  The hay rides.  The pile of old tractor tires organized in a vague, human-ish shape.</p>
<p>“So for your first visit to a genuine American Halloween fun farm pumpkin patch,” he asks Loki as they stop to look at a table of straw-based handicrafts for sale, “is it everything you hoped it would be and more?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” Loki replies.  He’s standing with both hands cupping his cider, holding it up to his face as if such a gesture could bring on cool fall weather.</p>
<p>“Was it worth driving two hours out to the middle of nowhere to experience?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>Well.  At least that’s an upside.  Loki’s happy with their outing, and he does look damn adorable in his inappropriate coat and scarf, carefully holding that cider cup like a mouse with a seed.  If he’s having a good time, is Tony going to complain?  Nope.  Loki enjoying himself is really all that matters.  And despite everything, Tony finds himself smiling.  “Okay, good,” he says.  “It’s uh…”  He glances back over his shoulder at a display of painted pumpkins.  “It’s not as hokey as I feared it would be.”</p>
<p>“It’s delightful,” Loki replies.</p>
<p>“I never would’ve guessed you to be a wholesome family holiday activity kind of guy.”</p>
<p>“We need to fully appreciate Halloween and take part in all the necessary cultural rituals, Tony.  Halloween is the greatest holiday.”</p>
<p>Tony nods.  “You sound very confident in that assessment for somebody who only just learned about Halloween two weeks ago.”</p>
<p>“It’s objectively perfect.  Humans celebrate not only ghosts and spirits and magic and strange creatures, but also other under-appreciated things like owls and toads and mushrooms and trees with branches that grow in peculiar shapes.  Things that might normally be considered frightening.  Bats, skeletons, full moon, candles… secrets… mysteries…”</p>
<p>“Okay, yeah.  I’m beginning to see the appeal for you.”</p>
<p>“And then the pumpkins.”</p>
<p>“Which you like because…?”</p>
<p>“Their vastness reminds me of Asgardian vegetables.  But then instead of just eating them, you carve them into amusing shapes and use them as lanterns.  I appreciate the frivolity of that.”</p>
<p>“What are you planning to carve into your pumpkin?”</p>
<p>“I was thinking a picture of a pumpkin.”</p>
<p>“That’s not how…” Tony begins, but who’s he to say what an appropriate pumpkin carving design might be?  “You know what, sounds great.  Go for it.  But I guess I always just assumed Christmas would be more your thing.  You know, cold, snow, elves, old guy with a big white beard watching everything you do to make sure you behave…”</p>
<p>Loki makes a face.  “That just sounds like every-day, normal life.  Thus, I much prefer Halloween.  Although,” he adds, “I think I would prefer it even more in a cooler climate.  Your California weather is inappropriate.  We should be celebrating Halloween somewhere else.  Like Wisconsin.”</p>
<p>“I know you also only just learned about Wisconsin this morning.  From that cartoon map on the placemat at the Mystery Hole Diner.”</p>
<p>“It sounds exotic.”</p>
<p>“Well, it’s different from our immediate surroundings, so that’s technically true.”</p>
<p>“If not Halloween, what would your favorite holiday be, then?” Loki asks.  He picks up a wooden pumpkin with a painted-on smile.  It has googly eyes.  Tony has to look sharply away before saying anything confrontational about that.</p>
<p>“Uh well,” he says instead, sticking strictly to the question, “I don’t have a favorite holiday, because I’m not six.  But if I had to choose, I think the clear winner is Fourth of July.  It has hot dogs, it has beer, it has on-purpose explosions…”</p>
<p>“Now that sounds like <em>your</em> every-day, normal life.”</p>
<p>“I’m flattered that you think my explosions are on purpose.”</p>
<p>Loki, thankfully, puts the googly-eyed pumpkin down.  “’On-purpose Explosions’ is the name of your sex tape,” he says.</p>
<p>Tony grins.  “Aw, baby’s first pop culture reference,” he says, taking Loki’s hand.  “I’m so proud of you.  It seems like only yesterday you were a fresh-off-the-intergalactic-doom-portal alien who thought when I said I had to get gas for the car that meant the car had a digestive system.”</p>
<p>“Doesn’t it though?”</p>
<p>There’s a bench up ahead, which looks like a perfect place for Tony to take a break and waste more time by just sitting in the sun and finishing his cider.  He takes a seat, and Loki next to him. </p>
<p>“No, it has an internal combustion engine, and I can’t even begin to explain how different the two things are.”</p>
<p>“Are you sure?”</p>
<p>“Yes I’m… yes.  Apart from some minor similarities in that both a digestive system and an engine take in carbon-based fuel and then break it down to extract energy, leaving behind a waste product that is expelled through the… uh… through the…”</p>
<p>Well, shit.  He turns to Loki with a scowl.  And Loki, the sly bastard, smiles back at him in a way that borders on both smug and self-satisfied.</p>
<p>“Fuck you,” he mutters.  “Do you realize that now every time I see a tailpipe I’m not going to be able to stop myself from thinking of it as the car’s anus?  God <em>damnit</em>.”</p>
<p>“It’s absolutely a mechanical digestive system.”</p>
<p>“Thanks, I hate it.  And I hate you.  I hate you so much.”</p>
<p>“You love me.”</p>
<p>“That has no bearing on the fact that I also hate you and you know it.”</p>
<p>And Loki laughs, in a way that’s probably only partially mocking, and puts his arm around Tony’s shoulder.  This would be more ideal if Loki weren’t wearing that ridiculous wool coat that’s making Tony feel prickly and hot just by being in proximity to him, but it’s otherwise tolerable.</p>
<p>(And by ‘tolerable’ he secretly means ‘very pleasant’.)</p>
<p>“Okay so,” he says after a while.  “How much longer do you want to stay here?  I was thinking we should probably get home soon so we can continue your education on Halloween traditions.  You already know about the part where people wear disguises and extort candy on the threat of tricks, which is very you, but there’s also the part where we eat candy while watching scary movies and you let me play with your hair.”</p>
<p>“That sounds agreeable,” Loki replies.</p>
<p>“Spectacular.  Let’s go.  We can pick up some crappy takeout on the way, and a bunch of candy, and then see how many movies we can get through before one or both of us falls asleep on the couch.”</p>
<p>They’re all the way back to the car and at the point of fastening seatbelts when Loki says, “I never did get a pumpkin.”</p>
<p>Tony, who had been counting on distracting thoughts of movies and candy leading to Loki forgetting that particular detail, tries to look as nonchalantly disappointed as possible.  “Oh, yeah, I guess you never did.  That’s too bad.  Well, we can pick something up from the store when we stop for candy.”</p>
<p>“No, it’s fine,” Loki says.</p>
<p>“Oh yeah?  You sure?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“If you say so.  But if you change your mind…  I know how much you were looking forward to carving a pumpkin.”</p>
<p>“We can always come back here to get a pumpkin tomorrow.”</p>
<p>Tony’s hands reflexively tighten on the steering wheel.  If he glances just the slightest bit to the right, he can see Loki from the corner of his eye.  Loki’s smiling sweetly.  And for however smart he thought he was being, however sneaky he was to weasel his way out of the pumpkin patch without buying anything, he has the distinct feeling that Loki had been playing the exact same game.  Just to different ends. </p>
<p><em>Fuck.</em>  Well played, Loki.  Well played.</p>
<p>He forces a smile in return.  “Absolutely, my beloved darling,” he says through clenched teeth.</p>
<p>Loki pats his knee.  “Lovely.  But make sure you set an early alarm.  I want to spend all day.”</p>
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